One of the best ways to get more traffic to your blog is to get linked back from other blogs. If your blog’s new, then most of the people visiting your site won’t have a clue who you are or what you blog about, so you have to make a great first impression.

As the saying goes, you only get one first impression and you need to grab each new visitor’s attention and compel them to stick around and check out your blog. Here’s a few tips to do just that:

1. Include your photo in the header of every page. I do it on my blog and John does it with his favicon and on his Who Is John Chow? page. Having your photo on your blog shows readers you’re a real person and that you’re not hiding behind your words. With so many faceless blogs floating around people will appreciate the fact you’ve taken the time to show them who you are. You can go one step further by creating an “About Me” page…
2. Create an honest, detailed “About Me” page. I think every blog should have a long, detailed page that talks about you, the writer of the blog. It should include all of your accomplishments (and failures) to date, as well as your hobbies and interests. People relate to people, and after reading your about page you want readers to feel like they’ve made a connection with you, which will make sure they stick around and check out some of your blog posts.
3. Setup a page for visitors searching for specific content. John and I were just talking on MSN messenger about how he wants to get to the front page of Google for the phrase “make money online” and I suggested checking the referrer and if the person came from Google with the search phrase “make money online” that he setup a simple page to tell people who he is, what he stands for and list the top 10 posts in his blog about how to make money online.A lot of commercial sites track search phrases to do this and it works really well. Visitors appreciate that you’ve taken the time to point them in the right direction and thus they stick around longer. In business this is called having a “message to market match”. That is, your message (blog) is what your market (visitors) were looking for.
4. Be yourself and speak your mind. Your blog is your personal stomping ground to write about whatever you want. Never, ever, ever skew your views or opinions on a topic just because someone has promise to pay you for it. You’ll lose your credibility faster than you can say “zero traffic”. Always be honest, open and upfront with your readers, and if you think something sucks just tell them.

I hope these tips can help you increase the “stickiness” of your blog - that is, making sure new visitors stick around longer. If you have any more suggestions leave them as comments below

This post was “guest blogged” my me, Mitchell Harper. I also run my own blog over at HarpzOn.com where I talk about getting traffic, marketing, copywriting, etc. I have been online for over 10 years and run a successful software company called Interspire.